


like real people do

by griffenly



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-31 23:35:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3997432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griffenly/pseuds/griffenly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Bellamy says "I love you," and one time Clarke says it instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like real people do

I.

He had been staring at the map for hours, and the lines were beginning to blur together, all these colors and shapes and symbols he had no fucking clue about, because Clarke had made it, and she was far more artistic than he would ever be. It had been drawn in painstaking detail, and he thought maybe she used it as an outlet, doodling the trees in the far left corner, the lake in the center. (He never commented, though. He knew better.)

Bellamy rubbed his eyes with his palms, groaning at the exhaustion seeping into his bones, and dropped his forehead against the table in front of him. 

He only raised his head when he heard her laugh.

She was leaning against one of the posts holding up his tent, a crooked grin on her face and her arms crossed over her chest, and he wanted to wipe the smugness away but, damn it, he was so tired.

“Shut up,” he muttered instead. Good one, Blake. A real zinger. 

“You need to go to bed.” 

“No, I don’t.”

“Bellamy, you’re literally falling asleep staring at that thing.” Clarke moved closer, tugging the map from underneath his hands, which remained poised on the table as though they were glued there.

“I have watch first shift, I really need to -” 

“Already taken care of.”

He stared at her, mouth slightly agape, waiting for her to trick him, but - but there was nothing besides the slightest ghost of a soft smile across her lips, and her eyes looked… gentle in the light of his makeshift lamp (little more than a lantern, but hey, he took what he could get), and - shit, he clearly needed sleep. 

“I love you,” he deadpanned, because, hey, he could blame exhaustion in the morning, and honestly, the idea of sleep sounded far too good to pass up, so he did kind of love her, a little bit. But not like that. Partners. 

Clarke merely laughed, and he thought it was a really nice sound. Kind of melodic. 

Get yourself together, Blake. 

“Seriously, Bellamy. Go to bed,” she said, rolling the map up and giving him one last, stern look (ah, there it is) before slipping out the front of the tent, and he collapsed onto his bed. 

II.

He felt warm. Warm all over, in his blood, in his veins. His head hurt, too, but it was a good hurt, and he thought his face might break in half from the wide grin that was stretched across it. (The moonshine in his hand was helping a lot, but that was neither here nor there.)

He saw her, too, sitting around the fire with a matching cup in her hand a carefree laugh bubbling out of her throat, that really, really nice one, that made him think of simpler days and what could’ve beens. She was sitting next to Monty, who was exaggeratedly miming something in a manner so absurd that Clarke nearly choked on her moonshine, and it made Bellamy smile just a bit more. 

He went to go take another sip, and found his cup empty. He frowned a bit at the metal, as if attempting to will more alcohol into it, and then a full one was being shoved in his face.

Bellamy looked up, and there she was, her head haloed by the moonlight and her face flecked with gold from the flames, and she looked like a fucking goddess, with all that gold hair and gold skin and brilliantine smile, and it was a bit difficult to look at her straight on. (He was also starting to see double of her, so, like - that was not helping.) 

“Thought you could use another,” she said nonchalantly, and he stared at the cup that had somehow transferred to his hand.

He leveled a serious glance at her and said, “I love you.” 

She laughed again. (Gods help him, he would listen to that sound forever.)

“Yeah, yeah, drink up.” 

He took a long swig, and they stood shoulder to shoulder, her body leaning a bit against his, and he reveled in the warmth of her. This girl was the sun, so bright and beautiful and always burning, always ready to scorch you to the touch if you got to close, always a source of light and energy and life for everyone else. He hadn’t realized he’d been staring at her until she turned her head and caught his eye, quirking an eyebrow. 

He quickly looked away. (The dreams he had that night meant nothing.)

(He was a liar.)

III. 

He didn’t know how it happened.

Okay, okay - that was a lie. He knew exactly how it happened.

It happened the way it always does: she was beautiful and brave and strong-willed, and he was rash and irresponsible and carrying a chip on his shoulder the size of fucking Mars. She didn’t put up with his shit, and she looked at him as though he were a galaxy, as though there was the potential for greatness written into his flesh, when in reality he was merely the black hole that swallowed up all the light.

Or, well… maybe she was the sun, and she was all of the light and the good and he was the moon, he watched over the chaotic blackness and he sucked it into himself, he took it all, so she would never have to. And because she was the sun, and he was the moon, and while one cannot exist without the other, while the earth cannot keep spinning without them both working together. But they could not exist at once. 

(It seemed so big, so much, that the word love didn’t fit quite right, like a too-small suit trying to stretch across broad shoulders. What he felt… it was more than that.)

And so this - this was easier. The fighting. The arguing. Nitpicking until she absolutely exploded, because, well - there’s a fine line between love and hate, right?

“I don’t understand why you’re being so insufferable about this!” she was screaming, and he couldn’t really concentrate, because her chest was heaving and there was a light in her eyes he hadn’t seen for awhile, and he missed that. “I’m a big girl, Bellamy! I can take care of myself!”

“I know that, but these… the Grounders are dangerous, and unpredictable, and if you think I’m going to let you -”

“Let me? Let me?” she shrieked. “You’re not my fucking keeper, Bellamy.”

“I know!”

“Clearly, you don’t. Why the hell do you insist upon being so goddamn stubborn?”

“Because I love you, damn it!” 

(Silence. Complete, utter, deathly silence.) 

Oh, shit. 

He tried to come up with a way to save the situation, to alleviate the crushing weight upon his chest that had been brought on by the widening of her eyes and the parting of her lips (in horror or shock, he wasn’t really sure - probably both). 

“Well,” he murmured, his voice a little too ragged for his own liking, “that did the trick.”

“You confessed your love for me to make me stop talking? You do that with all the girls?” Clarke asked, a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth, and so he merely shrugged in response.

“It was certainly effective.” No. Not all the girls. Just you. 

Clarke sighed heavily, massaging the bridge of her nose with two fingers, before muttering, “I just want you to trust me.”

His entire soul ached at that, because - because really, how could she not know? How could she possible think trusting her had anything to do with this?

“Of course I do,” he said vehemently, and when she made eye contact with him again, she looked utterly exhausted, and a tiny bit apprehensive. “I do, Clarke. I just…”

“Don’t trust them,” she finished. He nodded, and she sighed again, leaning her weight against the table beside her and running a hand over her face. “Well,” she said after what felt like an eternity, “trusting me is just going to have to do, for now. They won’t make the agreement if I go with backup, and… and we need this, Bellamy.”

But I need you more. 

(He agreed anyway, of course, because - because it was Clarke. It was always Clarke.)

IV.

The first thing he was conscious of was the overwhelming amount of blood.

He couldn’t even tell where it was coming from, because it was fucking everywhere; caked in her hair, painting her body like some morbid canvas, caked beneath her nails. Everything was red, the color of fire and death, and also the only color he could see. 

He was going to rip them to shreds for touching her. Every goddamn one.

Octavia was yelling things he didn’t understand at Harper and Monty, who were scrambling for supplies and the tools that they were then shoving into her awaiting hands, and Bellamy wasn’t quite sure when his sister had become so adept at this medical thing, but he wasn’t particularly complaining. 

Bellamy hadn’t even realized that he hadn’t let go of Clarke’s hand until Raven, at the request of a rather flustered Octavia, had gently pried his fingers from hers and ushered him out into the cool night air. 

(She looked dead. What if she was dead? Christ, he couldn’t do this if she was dead.)

It was hours before they would even let him anywhere near her vicinity, but it felt like ages, and he snapped at no less than seven different delinquents for a myriad of stupid reasons before Raven had once again herded him into his tent and forced him to just sit down for a fucking second. When they let him back in (Octavia with a knowing, if exhausted, smirk on her lips and Monty and Harper looking wrecked), he was by her side in mere breaths, their fingers intertwining. 

They left him alone with her, and he lifted their locked hands to his forehead and held them there, feeling her slow pulse thrum against his skull, and his entire body seemed to relax all at once in response, and he shuddered out a sob. “I fucking told you so,” he muttered, and he imagined that she would snort in laughter and punch his arm, if she were awake. “Gods, Clarke, I… I can’t do this without you, okay? You can’t keep… keep acting like you’re expendable. You’re not.”

(He was unbelievably glad she wasn’t awake to hear this right now.)

“And… and remember what I said, before you left? About being in love with you?” His laugh was sardonic and laced with a bit more emotion than he really wanted, but, fuck it, she was asleep. “I meant that. And… and maybe… maybe, when you wake up, I’ll tell you to your face, but for now… for now this is good.”

He kissed the top of her hand, never letting go, and he laid his head down beside their knotted fingers. 

(He didn’t see the smile that ghosted across her lips, and he didn’t feel the way her hand tightened its hold on his own.) 

+1.

She had woken up the next morning and felt perfectly fine (or so she claimed), and she insisted upon getting back to work. Octavia had had to practically strap her down to the bed before she finally relented, and that was only because she had nearly fainted in the process of trying to put her boots on.

And Bellamy… Bellamy avoided her like she meant certain death.

Because, well - she kind of did.

(She would be his ruination, of this he was certain.)

But she found him, one day, when he was at the stream washing his clothes. He was shirtless, wringing the dirty thing out, and he nearly fell into the frigid water at the sound of his name.

Clarke was leaning against a tree, her arms crossed over her chest and a very serious expression on her face, and it absolutely terrified him.

“You’re avoiding me,” she said pointedly, and he scoffed.

“No I’m not, Clarke,” he responded tiredly, and even he could detect the lie. (He knew she could too. She knew him far too well.)

She didn’t even bother refuting the statement. They both knew it was false. “I know why, too.”

“Well, seeing as I’m not avoiding you -”

“I heard you.”

(He thought he may have stopped breathing.)

“Wh- what?” he stammered, turning slowly to look at her, and there was a new look on her face now, one of mixed hope and amusement and even the tiniest, tiniest trace of fear. “What did you hear?”

“I heard you,” she repeated, and she was moving closer now, and he wasn’t functioning, because his brain had seemed to cease all activity, and she was right in front of him, suddenly, so close he could feel her breath ghosting across his chin. His fingers ached to reach out just that little bit and rest on her waist, feel the soft flesh beneath his calloused hands. (Her lips were so unbearably close, he thought he might break.)

“And?” he managed to whisper, and he watched the fire light up in her eyes, and - fuck, he loved her.

“And,” she said, her arms circling his neck, “I love you, too.” 

And then she kissed him. 

(She was the sun, and he was the moon, and she tasted like a supernova on his lips and he drank in her stardust and swallowed it down down down, and he prayed this would never end.)

(See, this is the thing about the sun and the moon: they can exist at the same time. At that one precise, perfect moment, an eclipse occurs, and - and they are together.)


End file.
